Croak Skull Illusion Scarf – Free knitting pattern with a subtle skull inclusion. The site requires registration, but you can use BugMeNot if you don’t wanna. (Hat tip to Janice)

Corset Cookies – These prettily-iced cookies would be great for a tea party. You can get the cookie cutter here.

Tim Flach’s Fruit Bats – Gorgeous portrait-style photos of fruit bats. (Sorry about the Facebook link; the artist also has a Website, but it’s all Flash and impossible to navigate.) He apparently also sells prints.

They have a whole range of Lovecraft-themed lollipops, in shapes ranging from the Necronomicon to Nyarlathotep (he’s raspberry-flavored, in case anyone was wondering). Their Chocolate Skulls come in four varieties, including “Spicy Xocolatl,” and although they aren’t quite life-size they’re about the size of a baseball and surprisingly inexpensive.

The one that really blows my mind, though, is their Edible Vampire Hunter Kit, which includes hard-candy bottles of holy water and holy oil, a fabulously-detailed miniature chocolate bible, a dark chocolate crucifix, white chocolate garlic, and three milk chocolate wooden stakes. Yowza.

I can’t find anything on their site about whether they ship internationally or not, but for folks in the U.S. there’s still time to order before Easter. (If you don’t think an Easter basket filled with candy Shoggoths wouldn’t be hilarious, you may be on the wrong blog.)

Guy yelling, wearing dress shirt and slacks: I’m looking to kill about 14 or 15 vampires today. If anyone could help me out and point me in the direction of a vampire lair, I could probably kill 8 or 9 there. Thank you.
— Overheard in New York

Say what you will about the Father of Lies–he always showed up to Lies’ T-ball games.
— StephenAtHome

I stuck this in my Drafts folder back in December and promptly forgot all about it (my mind is like a steel trap…that’s been pried open and left to rust). Since we’ve just hit spring around these parts, this one is for all you Southern Hemisphere folks. Everybody else can, um, keep it in mind for next winter. Or something.

It’s hot chocolate on a stick that turns blood-red when it melts. I’m really rather pleased with it.

The basic idea is cribbed from 30 Pounds of Apples, who has lots of lovely photos of each step in the process. My changes to the recipe and method are as follows:

Bat Embryo – Urka responded to the less-than-snorgleable leaf-nosed bat in a recent link dump by pointing me to both this bat embryo and a giant fruit bat, which are indeed worthy of extreme snorgling. (Thanks, Urka!)

TitanicVoyage – Twitter account managed by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It’s currently posting status updates “from” the captain, crew, engineering, and other people associated with the ship’s provisioning and launch. On April 15, the anniversary of the disaster, they plan to broadcast the vessel’s original wireless transmissions in real time. Which is either really interesting or sorta morbid; depends on your karma.

Octopus Cake Contest – Cake Central is holding a contest for octopus-themed cakes, cupcakes, cake pops, or cookies. I see nothing in the rules to preclude Cthulhu-themed entries. Come on people, let’s make this happen.

so today’s story of love and revenge comes from Japan
and I do not know why the Japanese are not
the most pacifistic people on earth
because if I were them I would be too afraid of creating a ghost
to indulge in anything more violent than contract bridge
Japanese ghosts do not mess around with cold drafts and creaking hinges
Japanese ghosts will personally fuck. you. up.
Japanese mythology is like six flags over psychosis
and their ghosts are the ultra twister

but I digress

so there’s this poor samurai named Iemon
and that is poor in the insolvent sense
not the feel-sorry-for-him sense
because he is a rat bastard
as exemplified in the beginning of this story
where he wants to marry a beautiful woman named Oiwa
and her father says he isn’t good enough for his daughter
so instead of trying to prove himself worthy
Iemon just straight up whips out his sword and kills him
which I would say justifies his belief
that he wasn’t good enough for his daughter

and then Iemon adds insult to injury
by promising Oiwa he’ll help find her father’s killer

I’m assuming she was out of the room at the time of the murder
although I guess she could just be supremely unobservant

so Iemon marries Oiwa
and somehow fails to find her father’s killer
and after a while
he decides that looks aren’t everything
making this decision specifically
upon meeting a rich woman named Oume
whose grandfather says could totally marry Iemon
thus sparing himself a nasty case of decapitation
except there’s the pesky problem
of Iemon already being married

so Iemon gallantly decides
to spare Oiwa the stress of divorce
by poisoning her instead
and the poison disfigures her
but does not kill her
so Iemon pretends that he’s happy she’s alive
and then takes her for a walk
and pushes her off a cliff
see that part up above about his general rat bastardry

fast forward to the night before Iemon and Oume’s wedding
where Oiwa pulls a Jacob Marley
and her disfigured face shows up as part of Iemon’s lantern
and she yells “Betrayal!”
and the story says that Iemon brushes this off
which I think you will agree
is a surprising reaction
to a shouting-dead-disfigured-wife lantern

but I digress

and also Iemon is less brush-offy the next day
at his wedding
when he lifts Oume’s veil
and instead there’s the disfigured face of Oiwa
DUN DUN DUN
and she shrieks “Betrayal!” again
and this time Iemon unsheathes his sword
and beheads her
and of course it’s Oume’s head that bounces down the aisle

worst wedding EVER

so he runs out of the hall
and hides in the shack where he lived with Oiwa
which if you have ever seen a horror movie in your life
you will know that this is the worst place
he could possibly hide
narrowly edging out
big dave’s serial killer supply emporium

so there’s a knock on the door
and for some reason Iemon is surprised
when he opens the door and Oiwa is standing there
all disfigured and betrayal-y
so he draws his sword
and beheads the ghost
because that has worked so well thus far
and then sees that he has just killed Oume’s grandfather
oops

so he runs to the cliff where he shoved Oiwa to her doom
has he NEVER seen a horror movie
and hears ghostly laughter
and almost jumps
but then changes his mind
and then Oiwa appears and pushes him off the cliff
which is nicely symmetrical at least

As I’ve mentioned many times previously I’m a fan of steampunk; I love the vibe of mass-produced mixed with one-off craftsmanship in the alternate-history technology that’s such a hallmark of the genre. If you’re similarly a fan, here are some links you might enjoy.

Girl Genius is a “gaslamp fantasy comic” penned by Phil and Kaja Foglio.

The Steampunk Home is a blog is devoted to home décor that combines “the scientific romanticism of the Victorians with our real present and imagined future.”

Aether Emporium bills itself as a “onestop resource and archive for all things Steampunk.” It’s a splendid resource, and it appears that they’ve recently switched over to a wiki format.

Steampunk Pics is no longer updating, but their archive is still available. There are images of steampunk items (such as “ray guns”) and real vintage photos with a steampunk feel (like Zeppelins floating over cities).

Intrepid reader Linda Frances sent me a link to the Art of Darkness Scavenger Hunt taking place in DC next month, commenting that from the title she’d wondered if I were involved with it. Sadly I am not, but I’m thrilled silly to find out about it.

It turns out that this event is only one of many worldwide. Obscura Day takes place on April 28 and is organized by the people behind the Atlas Obscura. It is, “an international celebration of unusual places….a day of expeditions, back room tours, & exploring hidden wonders in your own hometown.”

The site has a search feature and map of events so you can find stuff in your area, and if there’s nothing near you they can help you plan something of your own. If you’ve ever wanted to lead a ghost walk around your city or organize a tour of the local funerary museum, here’s your opportunity. (Incidentally, they’re also asking for photographers to help document all of the events, so if you don’t want to gin up your own event you can volunteer to attend one and take pictures.)

(Thanks, Linda Frances!)

Edited to Add: I swear I was completely sober when I wrote this, yet I managed to misattribute the submitter throughout. I blame the elves. (Sorry, Frances!)

What’s one of the items that every successful supervillain seems to have? No, not a fluffy white cat: A big computer console displaying all kinds of up-to-the-minute data. Designer Joel Friesen has given villains who are just starting out in this illustrious field a cut-rate solution to a shortage of minions.

Henchman’s Helper consolidates dozens of live webcams, continuously-updated weather graphics, a large, ominous-looking infrared satellite image of North America, and a useful Evilometer (helpfully calibrated in metric) to make sure you’re reaching your full evil potential.

The code is free under a Creative Commons license, so you can customize your own console to fit your style of world domination.